1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to the electronic collection and collation of information from various data sources. More particularly, embodiments of the invention create custom-formatted reports, based on point-of-sale data from franchise restaurants, for example, that authorized users can access easily from multiple locations.
2. Description of Related Art
Embodiments of the invention use the Internet for transmitting point-of-sale data between computing devices. The Internet has terminology specific to it. The following terms should assist in understanding the Internet in general and embodiments of the invention disclosed herein:                HTML: Hypertext Mark Up Language. The language that web-based documents are written in.        Browser: Software that allows you to interact with HTML documents.        IE: Internet Explorer. A commonly used browser.        URL: Uniform Resource Locator. The address of a web site.        Web Page: A single HTML document (it may be more than one page long when printed).        Web Site: A collection of pages written in HTML.        Home Page: The first page of a web site or the first page that a browser displays when it is started.        Download: The process of moving information from the Internet to your computer. When you look at a site in your web browser, the information is downloaded.        Upload: The process of moving information from your computer to the Internet.        HTTP: Hypertext Transfer Protocol. The method of moving HTML documents.        Hyperlink (link): The method of moving around an HTML document. Links can be graphics or text. Links can take you to another page in a site, to a different site, or to an e-mail form.        FTP: File Transfer Protocol. The method of moving non-HTML documents (such as graphic and daily extract files).        WWW: World Wide Web. An area of the Internet where web sites are stored. Also the first three letters of most URLs.        Internet: A collection of HTML documents that are accessible to users who have access to the Internet.        ISP: Internet Service Provider: A company that allows Internet users access to their computers. The company from which you rent the ability to connect to the Internet.        GUI: Graphical User Interface. Pronounced “gooey.” A program that uses graphics to enable users to interface with information. IE, Windows 95 and Windows 98 are GUIs.        
Point-of-sale systems have enjoyed tremendous popularity in the restaurant industry and other industries. Such systems typically perform data input and storage, and, in combination with back-office or back-of-the-house systems, perform corresponding analysis and output. Inventory control, suggestive selling prompts, accurate timekeeping and scheduling, remote access management, coupon usage and effectiveness analysis, purchase-order generation based on historical sales, and other record keeping and analysis activities are among the functions that such systems can perform.